With the proliferation of computing devices has come a dramatic increase in available information that seems to be exponentially growing each year. This requires that storage technology keep pace with the growing demand for data storage. Vast amounts of data can now be stored on very small devices that are easily transported and accessible almost anywhere in the world via the Internet. Data retrieval techniques have expanded in scale to also meet the growth of stored data. Advances in search engines and other ‘data mining’ techniques facilitate in the extraction of relevant data. Easy retrieval of information is paramount in the utilization of stored data. The harder the data is to retrieve, the more likely it will not be accessed and utilized. On the far end of the retrieval spectrum, if the data cannot be found and retrieved at all, then technology has failed despite the ability to store the data. Its value will lie dormant until technology once again advances to allow full access to the data.
Frequently, it is the timeliness of the information that makes its value substantial. The value of retrieving information at a desired point in time can be profound. A doctor operating on a patient may need access to additional surgical procedures or patient information during the surgery—making information retrieval a possible life and death action at that moment. Although this is an extreme example, it shows that the patient information, such as allergies to medicines, may be of a much lesser value to the doctor after the surgery should the patient die on the operating table due to an allergic reaction. Thus, having vast amounts of data is of little value if the data is not organized in some fashion to allow its retrieval. Therefore, data storage techniques such as databases utilize various methods to store the data so that it can be retrieved easily. Database search engines also utilize different techniques to facilitate in increasing the speed of data retrieval.
Most people familiar with an office environment will readily recognize an office filing cabinet. It typically has four or five drawers that contain paper files that are stored in folders inside the cabinet. This office concept of organizing was carried over into the computer realm in order to more easily transition new users to computer technology. Thus, typically, computer files are stored in folders on a computer's hard drive. Computer users organize their files by placing related files in a single folder. Eventually, this too became unwieldy because a folder might have several hundred or even a thousand files. So, users began to use a hierarchy of folders or folders-within-folders to further breakdown the files for easier retrieval. This aided retrieval but also required users to “dig” deeply into the folders to extract the folder with the desired information. This was frequently a daunting task if there were large hierarchies of folders.
The folder concept, however, is often challenged by those users who do not agree that an item only belongs to a single folder. They frequently desire to associate a file with several folders to make it easier to find. Some just copy a file into different folders to alleviate the problem. That, however, uses more storage space and, thus, is not highly desirable for large quantities of information. To circumvent this, users have begun to “mark” or “tag” the files or data to indicate an association rather than placing them in a folder. A tag is generally an arbitrary text string associated with an item that is utilized to recall that item at a later time. By tagging the item, the user is not required to place it in a folder and force it into a single category. A user has the flexibility of tagging and, thus, associating different types of items such as graphics, text, and/or data and the like. It also allows a user to apply multiple tags to the same item. Thus, a user can tag a picture of a mountain as a ‘vacation picture’ to enable recalling it as a vacation photo and also as ‘desktop wallpaper’ to enable recalling it as a background image on a computer screen. This is accomplished without requiring the actual item to be moved or placed into a folder, etc.
Despite the apparent power and flexibility afforded by tagging in contrast to utilizing folders, the folder concept still dominates most of today's computer users. The folder concept is easy to understand and to implement. It is “intuitive” for those who work or have worked in office environments and only requires a user to drag and drop an item into a folder to associate it with other items. In sharp contrast, current tagging techniques are cumbersome and require a user to dig deeply into associated data of the item, typically requiring opening several computer windows and having ‘expert-like’ knowledge in order to correctly tag the item. For these reasons, tagging has not been well received by most users, despite its powerful potential. To overcome a user's unwillingness to utilize complicated implementation procedures, tagging has to be as intuitive and easy as the folder concept. Only then will users begin to embrace tagging as a replacement for the filing concept that originated from the traditional office environment.